The Reverend Dr. Thomas D. Kennedy of Charlottesville, VA, died too young 10 years ago, having lived a life of service. Dr. Kennedy served as Senior Minister at the First Presbyterian Church from 1981 until his retirement in 2000, and was made Pastor Emeritus in 2001.

Dr. Kennedy was born on May 10, 1935 in Florien, Louisiana, the youngest of seven children. He was raised primarily in Northwest Arkansas. Prior to his career in the ministry, Dr. Kennedy served his country as a pilot in the United States Navy from 1955 to 1957, as an officer on the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C. from 1958 to 1960, and with the United States Department of Justice as a border patrol officer in Texas and California from 1960 to 1962.

In 1962, Dr. Kennedy returned to the University of Arkansas to pursue his education, where he was the president of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in speech and drama. He then attended the Louisville Presbyterian Seminary in Louisville, KY where he received his Master of Divinity degree in 1966, and was ordained as a Presbyterian Minister. Dr. Kennedy then served as an Assistant Minister at the First Presbyterian Church in Anderson, IN and as Associate Minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Royal Oak, MI. He received a Doctor of Ministry degree at the McCormick Seminary in Chicago, IL in 1975. The same year, he was called to serve as the Head of Staff at The Presbyterian Church in Bowling Green, KY. In 1981, Dr. Kennedy was called to serve at the First Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, VA.

Following his retirement as Pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Dr. Kennedy continued to be an active member of the Charlottesville community, serving as the Director of the Thomas Jefferson Area Chapter of Leave a Legacy [now the Charlottesville Area Planned Giving Council], a part-time chaplain at Westminster Canterbury of the Blue Ridge, and as a member of the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation Board.

Dr. Kennedy is survived by his wife, Chris, and daughter, Christine.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that any donations be made to favorite charitable organizations, honoring Dr. Kennedy’s belief in leaving a legacy. _________________

Tom benefitted the many charities he served for and with over his life, not only with his own donations, but also with generous gifts of his time and talent. And he was a tireless promoter of encouraging everyone to leave their own legacy to the charities that they so cared about in life. Those efforts of his continue to accrue today through the planned giving that Tom was singularly instrumental in getting potential donors to make. He never met anyone or any charity who did not call him a friend, and he had a way to ask so that saying no was not really an option. The Charlottesville Area Planned Giving Council is just one enduring legacy that he left for all of us and our community that we love.

LEAVE A LEGACY® is a public relations campaign of PPP designed to promote planned giving, especially bequests. A grassroots chapter was formed and began a publicity campaign in the Thomas Jefferson Area in 2000, chaired by the late Tom Kennedy and steering committee members Sharon Saari, Jeff Sobel, John Redick, Richard Howard-Smith, Kimberlee Barrett-Johnson, Cathy Train, and Jim Fernald. In order to better monitor the use of the brand and to make sure that LEAVE A LEGACY campaigns had solid support and effective accountability to the parent organization, PPP began requiring that all LEAVE A LEGACY programs be associated with, supported by, and accountable to a PPP-affiliated planned giving council.

Thus a group of community leaders with demonstrated interest and expertise in planned giving was called on to form a steering committee to establish a planned giving council: Kimberlee Barrett-Johnson, CFP; Sheryl Hayes, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities; Richard Howard-Smith, estate planning attorney; Ray Mishler, MJH Foundation; Kevin O'Halloran, Charlottesville Albemarle Community Foundation; Mark Smith, UVA Development; and Paula Newcomb, Monticello Foundation. This steering committee completed the process necessary to form a PPP-affiliated council and the newly-formed Charlottesville Area Planned Giving Council held its first luncheon meeting and educational event in May, 2004.

Since that time, the Council has held three annual lunch meetings, grown in membership to approximately 42 members, adopted by-laws, developed infrastructure by doubling its board effective July 1, 2005 and creating committees for board development, programming and LEAVE A LEGACY.

Relationship to PPP and PPP HistoryThe Partnership for Philanthropic Planning is the professional association for people whose work includes developing, marketing, and administering charitable planned gifts. Those people include fund raisers for nonprofit institutions and consultants and donor advisors working in a variety of for-profit settings.

In 1969, Congress passed the Tax Reform Act changing the way Americans could make charitable contributions. This was the major impetus for the creation of the field of planned giving.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, groups of professionals involved in gift planning began to have "think tank" meetings to discuss the feasibility of a national organization to act as a coordinator and facilitator for networking the various professionals and organizations involved in planned giving.

A meeting to study the needs and possibilities of a national organization for planned giving was held on October 29-30, 1985, in Chicago. Those in attendance agreed that there was a need for a significant number of services for planned giving officers that might be provided by some type of national organization. Its mission would be twofold: to provide quality educational opportunities for gift planning professionals and to unite the growing number of local planned giving groups already forming in larger metropolitan areas.

In late January of 1988, PPP opened its office in Indianapolis, Indiana. Partnership for Philanthropic Planning was formed as a federation of planned giving councils to facilitate, coordinate, and encourage the education and training of the planned giving community, and to facilitate effective communication among the many different professionals in this community. Individual professionals join their local council. The local council joins PPP. Together, the individual, the council, and the national organization work to improve the quality and quantity of planned gifts and to ensure a continued favorable climate for charitable activity of all kinds.